Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

GSA to release consolidated MAS program schedule on first of October

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This week, GSA announced it is on track to debut its Consolidated Multiple Acquisition Schedule (MAS) Program Schedule Solicitation on October 1. GSA also gave federal contractors planning to bid on the MAS a head start on the process by releasing a final draft solicitation and an updated industry FAQs sheet. Let’s take a look at how to utilize this opportunity to prepare for the solicitation’s long-awaited debut.

GSA’s MAS Program “establishes long-term Government-wide contracts with commercial firms to provide government buyers with access to a wide variety of commercial supplies, services, and solutions.” GSA first announced its plan to modernize this Program “by consolidating its 24 Multiple Award Schedules into one single Schedule for products and services” on November 27, 2018. GSA aimed to “simplify the buying and selling experience for customers, suppliers, and acquisition professionals.” Over the past ten months, GSA conducted extensive market research and collected industry-wide feedback regarding its consolidation strategies, the new single solicitation format, and the streamlined terms and conditions.

GSA recently announced its plans to publish the Consolidated MAS Program Solicitation on FedBizOpps on October 1, so now’s the time to become familiar with the effects of the consolidation.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon 

GSA announces plans to consolidate MAS contracts and asks for industry feedback

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The General Services Administration is conducting market research for its planned consolidation of the Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Program.  Earlier this month, GSA publicly announced the new single solicitation format, including streamlined terms and conditions, and its intention to collect feedback from government contractors in the industry.  According to GSA, the consolidation is part of its two-year modernization process for the program that began in November of 2018.  The consolidated MAS solicitation is scheduled for release later this year.  And if you have concerns or suggestions for GSA on this significant consolidation, there is still time for your input.

On June 7, GSA publicized its plan to restructure the MAS Program by issuing a news release on GSA.gov and posting an RFI to FBO.gov.  GSA announced that it intends to streamline the federal acquisition process by consolidating its 24 MAS into a single schedule for products, services, and solutions. It hopes to complete the new consolidated schedule, which it calls “Phase One” of the project, during this fiscal year.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon Blog

The future of COTS procurement: Top 10 questions from GSA’s section 846 phase 2 report

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On May 2, 2019, the General Services Administration (“GSA”) and the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) finally released their Phase 2 Implementation Report (the “Phase 2 Report”) for “Procurement Through E-Commerce Portals,” as directed by Section 846 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (“FY 2018 NDAA”).

GSA/OMB offered a sneak preview of the Phase 2 Report at an Industry Day held on December 12, 2018, during which GSA/OMB revealed their intent to proceed with a proof of concept contract utilizing only the E-Marketplace model. Industry pushback against a single model proof of concept was both quick and severe and, coupled with the lengthy delay issuing the Phase 2 Report, many wondered whether GSA/OMB were reevaluating their proposed approach.

Much to the dismay of E-Commerce and E-Procurement portal providers, GSA/OMB stayed the course.  Their Phase 2 Report included two primary conclusions: (1) testing the E-Marketplace model exclusively during the proof of concept phase is the most practical approach, and (2) raising the Micro-Purchase Threshold (“MPT”) to $25,000 for 5 years exclusively for purchases made through the approved portals is necessary to maximize the effectiveness of the proof of concept.

While the Phase 2 Report provides these two concrete conclusions, ultimately, the Report raises more questions than answers. And what better way to address these than a good old-fashioned Top 10 List.  So, without further ado, here’s our Top 10 List of questions from the Phase 2 Report…

Continue reading at:  The National Law Review

An inside look at GSA’s federal marketplace strategy

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In a Federal News Network podcast, Emily Murphy, administrator of the General Services Administration, shares her vision for the agency’s Federal Marketplace Strategy (FMS).

During the podcast, Murphy outlines the four cornerstone initiatives (4C’s) of FMS:

  • MAS Consolidation
  • Commercial Platforms
  • Catalog Management
  • Contract Writing System

Murphy also provides an update on customer agencies growing use of GSA’s procurement portfolio, including the MAS, IT GWACs and OASIS.

Finally, she gives us a preview of the Federal Acquisition Service Training Conference scheduled for April 14-16, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia.  FAST 2020 is a national training conference for the federal acquisition workforce, industry partners and customer agencies.

Listen to the podcast at:  Federal News Network

Mass changes coming to all GSA Schedule contracts; webinar to be held on April 10

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The General Services Administration (GSA) is planning to “refresh” all GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) solicitations and issue a mass modification to existing contracts in April.  The changes include:

  • Updating proposal instructions to require order status on GSA Advantage! Orders.
  • Updating proposal instructions related to Section 508 Standards and information.
  • Incorporating new Service Contract Act (SCA) Wage Determinations.
  • Updating AbilityOne “Essentially the Same” Proposal Instructions.
  • Incorporating minor updates from FAC 2019-01 (defining “recruitment fees” in relationship to Combating Trafficking in Persons rules), as applicable.

In addition, individual Schedules may be updated with additional clauses or provisions to make clarifications, administrative corrections, and other required changes.

GSA will issue a bilateral modification to apply the changes to existing MAS contracts.  Contractors will have 90 days to accept the mass modification.

Please see Draft Significant Changes document for more detailed information on the upcoming refresh.

Note: This is the final set of solicitation refreshes before GSA consolidates the 24 existing MAS solicitations into a single Schedule for products and services. To learn more about MAS Transformation, read GSA’s Nov. 27, 2018 press release.

Webinar Offered

Register now for GSA’s April 10, 2019 public webinar about upcoming changes to MAS solicitations. This webinar will be in a listen-only format with the ability for participants to ask questions via an online chat function.

●         Date: Wednesday April 10, 2019

●         Time:  1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern Time

●         Registration Link

 

The devil’s in the details as GSA seeks to consolidate the Multiple Award Schedules

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The General Services Administration (GSA) will use the coming year to determine what its recently announced consolidated schedule will look like, according to the official leading the effort.

GSA announced in November the consolidation of 24 multiple award schedules into a single contract vehicle that federal agencies can use to purchase a range of more than 10 million products and services. Each year, agencies purchase about $30 billion worth of products — ranging from office supplies to various IT services — through GSA’s 24 schedules.

“Over this year, we’ll start the consolidation of the MAS program,” said Stephanie Shutt, director of the MAS Program Management Office, speaking at a recent GSA industry day.

Shutt said an integrated project team consisting of MAS members and officials from various acquisition centers and portfolios is doing much of the early work. This team will help make crucial decisions that could shape the single schedule.

For example, Shutt said they are reviewing all existing terms and conditions and determining where overlap exists among special item numbers, which generally categorize the kinds of good and services available. One goal, she said, would be to get rid of redundant or duplicitous conditions.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/12/devils-details-gsa-seeks-consolidate-multiple-award-schedules/153638/

Industry applauds acquisition consolidation, warns of work to be done

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Members of the private sector and industry-representing groups applauded the General Services Administration’s decision to consolidate the 24 multiple award schedules into a single acquisition vehicle, but cautioned that the agency would have to do much more than just consolidation to affect real change.

“Assuming all else stays the same, combining all of the [special item numbers] under one umbrella doesn’t necessarily alleviate the burden to negotiations and buyers,” said Julia Conti, contracts director at CGI Federal, at a Dec. 12 GSA industry day. “Making it easier is not necessarily keeping it on autopilot.”

According to Conti and other members of a panel at the event, the GSA is going to have to rework contracting language, examine a broader array of contracting vehicles and make efforts to reach out to both agencies and the workforce for the MAS consolidation to be truly effective.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2018/12/12/industry-applauds-acquisition-consolidation-warns-of-work-to-be-done/

Are you a GSA Schedule contractor? Expect changes next year in how you report sales and pay your IFF

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The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced that Federal Supply Schedule contractors will be required to use a new system beginning in 2019 to report their sales and remit their Industrial Funding Fee (IFF).

The present 72A Reporting System will be replaced with a Sales Reporting Portal (SRP).  The goal of the transition to the SRP is to provide a single reporting system for all contractors to use for reporting sales and remitting IFF.

GSA’s overall IT modernization efforts include improving its IT enterprise by building and maintaining a more modern and secure architecture for its IT systems.

The transition to the SRP system not only supports GSA’s modernization effort, but it streamlines the overall process of reporting sales and remitting the IFF, making it more efficient for GSA and its industry partners alike.

The Federal Acquisition Service’s Sales Reporting Portal currently houses all the Transactional Data Repository (TDR) contracts as well as all new quarterly reporting MAS contractors as of July 2018. GSA wants to complete the transition by moving more than 14,000 current contracts into the FAS SRP to allow for the sun-setting of the existing 72A reporting system.

GSA has developed and implemented a three-phase implementation approach that will be carried out over the next 12 months. This phased-in approach will let contractors start reporting in the new system while GSA transitions their historical data over from the legacy 72A system.

  • In Phase One, companies will be notified via email that their Schedule contract(s) have been assigned a FAS Sales Reporting Portal transition date. This date will be the first day of a reporting quarter.  No action will be needed until the end of that reporting period, when the contractor will begin reporting sales and remitting their IFF in the new FAS SRP.

Example: A contract is assigned the Jan. 1, 2019 transition date which is the first day of a reporting quarter.  No action will be necessary until the contractor has to report sales for that quarter in April 2019. That will be the first time the contractor would be required to log into the FAS SRP and report sales there.

  • In Phase Two, contractors complete their final reporting of sales and remittal of IFF in the legacy 72A System for the current quarter.

Example: FAS SRP Report Date: January 2019 – The contractor will report sales and remit their IFF in the legacy 72A system one final time for the period covering October 2018 thru December 2018.  This reporting will be due by January 30, 2019.  The company will report sales for the quarter January 2019 through March 2019 in the new FAS SRP during April 2019.

  • In Phase Three, all contract history will transfer over from the legacy 72A System into the new FAS SRP. This process will not happen until the last sales have been reported and the IFF is paid in the 72A System. Once complete, GSA will migrate the contract sales history over into the FAS SRP . If the contract has an overall variance (i.e., an imbalance between IFF owed and IFF paid) at that time, the contractor will be notified via email prior to migrating their history into the FAS SRP.

Contractors may direct questions related to this transition via email to: MASPMO@gsa.gov.

GSA wants streamlined forms for Schedule offers

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It is taking too long for the General Services Administration to process new offers from companies looking to get on a Multiple Award Schedules, according to officials, but a new policy seeks to streamline and standardize that work.

The MAS program will be releasing a draft of the new policy in “two-and-a-half to three months,” said Tiffany Hixson, GSA assistant commissioner for the Office of Professional Services and Human Capital Categories, during ACT-IAC’s Feb. 22 Federal Insights Exchange.

“Implementing offer streamlining is a really big deal for us,” Hixson said. “We were probably pushing a year in some instances in terms of getting offers processed. Granted, some of that was just related to the sheer volume of offers. … That said, there were some real challenges that we were having in terms of processing offers.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/02/gsa-wants-streamlined-offer-forms/146179/

GSA is expected to post its draft policy on this subject on the GSA Interact website.

Major contractor pays $1.7 million to settle overcharges on GSA Schedule

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Accenture Federal Services LLC (Accenture), located in Reston, has agreed to pay $1,744,559 to settle overcharges billed to a General Services Administration multiple award schedule contract.

The resolution follows from a disclosure by the company to the U.S. Army Contracting Command, which arose out of an internal investigation conducted by Accenture. Accenture reported to the government that overcharges had been caused by unauthorized purchases of copy toner that had been surreptitiously made by a subcontractor on the contract. The disclosure by Accenture to the Army was made pursuant to the Contractor Code of Business Ethics and Conduct under the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). Accenture provided assistance during the government’s investigation.

The resolution obtained in this matter was the result of a coordinated effort between the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The civil claims settled are allegations only; there has been no determination of civil liability.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/accenture-pays-17-million-settle-overcharged-government-contract

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